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After the Deluge

I went to bed last night at 2 a.m. I’d been sure of the outcome since about 11 p.m., and got tired of waiting for one network or another to announce it. I woke up this morning to Donald J. Trump as the President-elect. Not what I expected yesterday morning when I went to vote, though I had discussed the specific scenario by which he won several times in the days before the election.

So how do we find sound footing after being swept away in this historic flood? We don’t. Because there was no flood.

Donald Trump secured one of the most unlikely victories, in one of the most amazing upsets, in American political history. This is bigger than when “Dewey beats Truman” was wrong in 1948, because Trump won against the projections of a massive apparatus of scientific polling. He confounded the doubters and the critics. He has swept away one of the most powerful American political dynasties. (And good riddance.)

But astonishing does not equal overwhelming. Right now, Donald Trump trails Hillary Clinton by less than 200,000 votes. Yes, you read that right, he trails. Depending on which website I consult, he has a confirmed total of between 276 or 289 Electoral votes. (The most likely final count adds 30 Electoral votes to the lower of Trump’s totals.)

This is a huge upset. Trump won, Clinton lost, absolutely certain, almost entirely unexpected. But it is no kind of landslide, no kind of mandate. It is, for the fifth time in American history, an Electoral College victory combined with a loss in the popular vote.

President-elect Trump savors his victory amid the most bitter partisan divide since Abraham Lincoln took office at the beginning of the Civil War. Public anxiety is the highest since December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor. Confidence in government and our public institutions is at the lowest level ever. And over 60% of American voters believe that Trump lacks the temperament to be President.

Sounds like we have nowhere to go but up.

Eight years ago, Obama took office with high expectations that he would lead us into a bright, prosperous and post-racial future. That hope went unfulfilled, with the blame fairly shared between President Obama and Congressional Republicans.

Trump will take office with the lowest possible expectations, with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, but with Senate Democrats retaining the power of the filibuster. He’ll have the opportunity to replace a deceased, very conservative Supreme Court Justice with a new judge unlikely to be any more conservative.

Last night his victory speech hit all of the right conciliatory notes. Let us all hope that Trump governs effectively and inclusively, that he surrounds himself with capable men and women, and that America’s future is bigger than its past.